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Mikhail I. Romm, Film Director Who Won Soviet Prizes, Is Dead

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November 3, 1971, Page 50 The New York Times Archives

MOSCOW, Nov. 2—Mikhail I. Romm, a prominent Soviet film director, died, yesterday at the age of 70.

Mr. Romm's most important work was associated with the Stalin era, when he was award ed five Stalin Prizes and pro duced two films about Lenin that are considered classics of the Soviet cinema—“Lenin in October” (1937) and “Lenin in 1918” (1939).

The best known of his post war pictures is “Nine Days of One Year” (1962), depicting the moral problems faced by young Soviet physicists who are working on military appli cations of nuclear energy.

Mr. Romm's last important work was a feature‐length doc umentary titled “Ordinary Fas cism” (1966), which traced the social and political origins of the rise of Hitler and the history of his rule.

Trained initially as a sculp tor, Mr. Romm began to work in film in 1929, first as a screen writer and later as a director. His first production as a direc tor was a silent, movie version of Maupassant's short story “Houle de Suif” (1934).

The two Lenin films rep resented the first significant at tempt's to portray the founder of the Soviet state in motion pictures.

Films Seen Here

Several of Mr. Romm's films were shown in this country to critical approval. Among them were “Houle de Suif,” “The Thirteen,” “Girl No. 217,” “Di ary of a Nazi,” “Lenin,” “Nine Days of One Year” and “Tri umph over Violence.”

Reviewing “Houle de Suif” in 1958, Howard Thompson of The New York Times remarked that it had “been made without sound in 1934 and looks it.”

“However,” he went on, “the famous story Is faithfully fol lowed and is still pretty won derful as a scathing commen tary on hypocrisy and selfish ness.”

Vincent Canby of The Times called “Triumph Over Vio lence,” his last film released here, in 1968, “a banal and curiously patronizing documen tary about the rise and fall of the Third Reich as seen by a culture that—for convenience's sake‐has recorded history in a loose‐leaf notebook”

Mr. Romm was in the news in recent weeks when it was reported that Zhores A. Med vedev, a Soviet biologist and author, had written a detailed account of his arrest and de tention in a mental hospital in 1970. Mr. Romm was one of a group of scientists, writers and other professionals who had sought Mr. Medvedev's free dom.

A version of this archives appears in print on November 3, 1971, on Page 50 of the New York edition with the headline: Mikhail I. Romm, Film Director Who Won Soviet Prizes, Is Dead. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe